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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26721685">the broken radio is playing suicide</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotallynotRemus/pseuds/TotallynotRemus'>TotallynotRemus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Luther Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Pre-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:21:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,534</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26721685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotallynotRemus/pseuds/TotallynotRemus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Luther feels like his body doesn't belong to him anymore.</p>
<p>
  <em>For the Bad Things Happen bingo - Self-Harm.</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1514339</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the broken radio is playing suicide</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/gifts">VeteranKlaus</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>listen did i expect this to be the next work id finish and post? no! i've been focusing on literally five other wips at the same time right now. but sometimes miracles happen when youre on your phone in bed and can't fall asleep so let's have some Luther feels because I couldn't get that Tom Hopper interview out of my mind where he talks about Luther canonically self-harming and how they made his body suit have scars and patches with that in mind. anyway enjoy!</p>
<p>(Thank you Sara, Kay and Natch for helping me &lt;3 you sexy bishes)</p>
<p><strong>CW:</strong> deals with non-consensual body modification and the aftermath of such, self-harm, childhood abuse and neglect as well as justifications of it. Has mentions of blood and injuries, as well as reckless behavior and passive suicidal ideation. Mentions Ben's canonical death. Overall all that good, cheery stuff!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Luther looks at his hands, torn and bloody from where broken glass cut through rough skin as self-loathing won the fight against yet another random bathroom mirror, and wonders how things ended up this way.</p>
<p>The mission had been his fault— of course it had, he was the leader <em> (the only one left) </em>, and he should’ve known to be more careful when dealing with something as delicate as chemical weapons, to think of a second and a third and a tenth plan in case things went wrong. A lack of intel is no excuse for a job sloppily done. Father expected better of him and once again Luther failed to deliver, and now he’s paying the price for it.</p>
<p>He wonders why Reginald even bothered to save him, when all Luther has done is disappoint him.</p>
<p>Does he regret it?</p>
<p><em> (Luther wishes he hadn’t. He feels guilty whenever he thinks of it, for being so ungrateful after everything dad’s done for him, after the man saved his life from certain death at the hands of his own stupidity and was kind enough to spare the lecture until he could leave the infirmary on his own feet, but it’s true. It's </em> true. <em> At least when he died, Ben was still himself. He had been allowed that much.) </em></p>
<p>
  <em> (Luther would rather die than have to live as a monster.) </em>
</p>
<p>He wishes his siblings were here, on the same breath that he hopes they never have to look at him again. Luther wants them to remember him as he was instead of what he became, and yet still he can’t help but miss them, <em> all </em>of them— even Diego, who was always poking at him, and Klaus, who he never really got along with. Quiet, quiet and vulnerable Vanya, who he never truly understood. He longs to walk past Allison’s door and hear music and laughter coming from the room, and know automatically that there is a fashion show happening inside. To make stupid bets with Diego that rarely ever end well for either of them but never fail to make both grin, and to catch glimpses of Ben reading one of Vanya’s silly romances that he pretends not to like, always tucked away in the library.</p>
<p>For Five to be here, to know what he’d look like as a man.</p>
<p>But one by one they’ve all left, starting with Five and only a few years later Ben, and then like a dam breaking the rest of them spilled out, as if they couldn’t handle a second longer inside. Leaving with a few awkward words and pity in their eyes, if they said goodbye at all.</p>
<p>
  <em> (He wasn’t good enough of a reason to stay. Didn’t even try asking them to.) </em>
</p>
<p>Like they couldn’t comprehend why he wasn’t packing his bags as well, while at the same time never having expected him to do anything else.</p>
<p>
  <em> (Nobody asked him to go with them, either.) </em>
</p>
<p>It’s not that Luther doesn’t understand.</p>
<p>He does, he always knew how his siblings felt about their father— he’d have to either be blind or particularly obtuse not to.</p>
<p>As children, they were eager to please him, eager to receive his praise and attention. He was their father, so of course they loved him. They all did. He remembers Diego would trail after him like a lost duckling when younger, trying to imitate the man’s every movement as if it would get dad to notice him, despite the fact that he always only ended up making a fool of himself. </p>
<p>But things changed as they grew up, and the house grew colder, his siblings resentful. Slowly but surely, mentions of their father were met with wariness and disdain. Even fear at times.</p>
<p>Luther knows that Reginald was too strict and harsh on them, and that he wasn’t a particularly caring and kind father. He knows that the missions grew tougher with time and that the expectations placed on them grew more and more impossible to achieve, just like he knows that they all felt suffocated inside the Academy, for all that it was all they’d ever known. He felt that way too. He understands.</p>
<p>He remembers playing his favorite records whenever Reginald was away, for it was the only time they could really be free beyond late night donut escapades. They would drop whatever they were doing and dance, no matter what, no matter how silly they looked.</p>
<p>For a moment, they were just children. They were happy.</p>
<p>It never lasted.</p>
<p>He also remembers crying after training, with his arms sore and his hands bleeding after being pushed way past his limits— he was only twelve and he was hiding his tears from his siblings because he had to be strong for them, goddammit, he’s Number One. It’s his job to protect his family. A weak leader only leads to a weak team, and they couldn’t afford to be weak. Not with the fate of the world on their shoulders. </p>
<p>That’s a lesson he could never afford to forget. Losing Ben was proof of that.</p>
<p>
  <em> (His fault, his fault, it’s always his fault.) </em>
</p>
<p>Luther just wishes that his siblings had tried to understand too, that it wasn’t all that their father was.</p>
<p>Yes, Reginald expected the impossible of them, but they were always meant to do the impossible. <em> They </em>were impossible. Everything he did, every training session and scolding and punishment they received, he did for their own good. </p>
<p>Reginald housed, fed, and dressed them, helped them control their powers and to only do good with them. Maybe he wasn’t like the fathers in the movies they’d sometimes sneak out to watch, but then again, they weren’t like normal kids either— he couldn’t coddle them and treat them as such, no matter how much they sometimes wished he would.</p>
<p>But he did care about them, even if he had his own ways of showing it.</p>
<p>It’s the little things. The way he would praise them on their satisfactory job after every mission well done, or how every year on their birthday they were allowed to have cake and get a birthday present each, things that every other day he would call a waste and frivolous. How he would come to their rooms himself every night when they were younger only to tell them that rest is important for the development of the brain and fix their wires, their goodnight routine, and how if they knew to be quiet, they would be allowed to sit in the same room as him while he read— something granted only to the most well behaved.</p>
<p>Maybe— maybe if Luther had done a better job to convince them, to show them that… Maybe then his family wouldn’t have broken apart.</p>
<p>Now his arms— his grotesque, disproportionate arms that no longer feel like his own— have scars from where he’s pulled out patches of skin, over and over, again and again, in his attempts to get rid of the fur and rough skin there. Trying, irrationally, desperately, to look like himself again. To be able to look in the mirror and recognize who he once was, or at very least, to not see a monster looking back at him; the ever-present overwhelming shame and nausea as he's forced to drag himself to the infirmary for Mom to fix the mess he's made of himself, refusing to look away from the ground as she scolds him with a voice far too chipper for the situation, giving him stitches that will be removed sooner than they should've due to his superior healing factor and even then, even with the tears that he refuses to let fall lest they prove his weakness and with the blood all over the floor staining what was once spotless white tile— even then Luther can't find it in himself to regret it, to not wish to have dug deeper into his own flesh with his blunt nails. </p>
<p>Maybe it would make him less of a disappointment, to be brave enough to end it himself instead of dragging it out. For what good is a leader without a team, or a brother without a family?</p>
<p>Or maybe it all would simply stop mattering, then.</p>
<p>He can't, though. He refuses to. Luther can't abandon his duties like that, not when there's still people to protect, a world to be saved. He's not like his siblings, who were all able to leave it all behind like everything they've been taught meant nothing to them, like any of them were ever meant to be people instead of soldiers destined to something bigger than themselves. Luther is Number One— the <em> good </em> son. The one who stayed behind, who listened and obeyed. He can't throw away a gift as precious as life given to him by his father, when Ben will never be able to get his back.</p>
<p>And maybe he's a bit more reckless during battles than he used to be, less worried about his well-being as he all but throws himself at enemies; his once impenetrable skin each time more weakened as a reflection to the weakness of his soul. It doesn't mean anything.</p>
<p>Luther has a mission to do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hope you enjoyed it!</p>
<p>Thank you for reading and please don't forget to give kudos if you liked it and leave a comment telling me your thoughts, they feed the hungry author's soul! &lt;3 Also feel free to talk to me on tumblr @ my tua blog bentacles-hargreeves, or even @ my main totallynotremus, where I'm up to talk about literally anything and am almost always online!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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